Palestrina: Tui sunt coeli

Following the success of the first volume in their Palestrina series which won the International Classical Music Award for Early Music, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen release the second recording in the series which has a Christmas theme.

Palestrina was born in 1525 not far from Rome, in the town whose name he bore and from which we take the cover images for this series of discs.

Possibly the greatest composer of liturgical music of all time, Palestrina was a towering figure in Renaissance polyphony. Choral singers world-wide will know his Missa Papae Marcelli (recorded by The Sixteen on COR16014) as, without doubt, it is the most renowned of Palestrina’s works and possibly the most famous mass of all time.

Each volume in this series is based around a single mass and theme relevant to that mass, in this case the Nativity and the festive Motet and Mass Hodie Christus Natus Est. The mass features alongside some of his settings of the Song of Songs as well as the Magnificat Quinti toni and Motet O magnum mysterium.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c1525-1594), took his name from the small town in the Sabine Hills about 25 miles from Rome where he was born. He was the eldest of four children of reasonably well-off parents and went to S. Maria Maggiore in Rome as a choirboy and even remained there after his voice broke. In 1544 he returned to Palestrina as organist and singing teacher but in 1551 he joined the town’s Bishop, who had been elected Pope, in Rome. A mass dedicated to his patron won him a place in the Papal Choir of the Sistine Chapel in 1554 but a year later his patron died and a successor, Paul IV, threw all the married men out of the choir and that included Palestrina. It was in 1561 that the appointment of maestro at S. Maria Maggiore, where he had been a choirboy, gave him the security he needed and his fame as a composer rose consistently thereafter. In all he wrote 104 settings of the mass and 375 motets, this collection, sung by the choir of King’s College in Cambridge, includes four of the most famous masses as well as six motets.

‘All the familiar qualities that serve to make Westminster unique among Britain’s cathedral choirs are in evidence here … the crucial added ingredient is singing of a passion and conviction that reminds us that this music is the choir’s lifeblood. This is unquestionably one of the glories of the year’ (Goldberg)